Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Just the other day, Okami had begun the emotional-mental unit of health with her students. And to be completely honest, she certainly did not miss the annoyance that flickered across various faces. More and more teenagers these days did not find health to be a worthwhile subject anymore, as they had the internet and early-experiences to already know everything about it. However, it was still required to be taught, and so she wanted to make the most of it.

So with that being said– maybe her teaching methods were indeed a little bit "corny." Maybe, to most students, her attitude was overbearing and almost juvenile. But if she was ever going to get anything done, then it would have to be through her own form of passion.

And there, she had assigned all of the students a simple first assignment. Something that rung heavily of her own influence, and yet something that would help ease them into this new subject. A task, where they had to write any-length answer to the following question…

"What is love?"

Chapter Text

Dom stared down at his paper, pencil grating against the desk and leaving marks.

"What is love..? Isn't that obvious? I mean…"

He began to write something small. After all, the question wasn't asking for an incredibly extensive answer. It was just asking for an answer at all. 

"It's when you like somebody…"

In the distance, he heard crude shouting followed by a loud thud. He sucked in a quick breath, before continuing:

"...And you care about them."

He would've been content to leave it at that. And for about an hour, he did. But when he heard the sound of a car zooming away, and he realized that the house was now totally silent…

He, almost driven by spite, picked up his paper once more. 

"And no matter what, you stick by them. You don't let them go, even if you argue or fight or disagree. Loyalty."

Dom's pencil broke, but he had to be done anyways. He still had to go cook dinner before the kitchen became unsafe again.

xXxXx

Sookie was off working the night-shift at Pete's, so Soul was left alone as she did her homework. She had to allocate most of her time on highlighting a drama script, but then remembered her health assignment too. She decided to knock it out, since she still had a bit of time left.

She couldn't believe that they had to do such an embarrassing prompt. Whenever she thought about things like this, she always felt a little uneasy. Something about being genuine to your teachers would always just feel wrong, and while she could just lie and put something simple– being disingenuous somehow felt even more wrong.

Soul groaned. She had no clue why, but she was unable to reserve her feelings. Even though it humiliated her to do so, she found herself answering in a rather lengthy paragraph. Not many people knew this, but she was quite the competent writer. Granted though, such a nerdy fact was also humiliating. Perhaps, that's why she hid it so well.

"Love is when you're able to bare your soul to somebody without lying. Truth is fundamental to any relationship, and it's when you can accept all the ugly parts about a person do you finally, seriously love them. But it's not just with people. It's with things too. When you can pour your heart into a passion, that's love. Excitement is love. Comfort is love. I love many things, and I love many people. That's what living's all about."

She flinched when Yuki opened the door without warning. She didn't understand why Soul was suddenly all fidgetty, but quickly left before the girl yelled at her.

xXxXx

Pie groaned at the paper. She already knew that she was screwed the moment that she read the prompt, but now that he held a pen, it was becoming a little bit more real. 

It was hard for Pie to ever put his feelings into words. It was why she was much more of a reader than a writer, but even then, when was the last time that he had ever picked up a book? She was lucky that Okami always took pity, because he was sure that she messed up every single grammatical rule in Language Arts.

Oh well.

It's not like she had to be super honest here. And who needs fancy words on a Health assignment, anyways? He could use something simple! Straight to the point…

"...Love is… it's… gord, I-I dunno!"

He ended up writing a bullet-point list, rather than an actual sentence:

"Kindness, grace, forgiveness, mercy, care, and company."

Her face burned as she crossed out the word "all-knowing."

xXxXx

Starforce must've been the first to get this assignment done, because he had gotten started the moment that the paper was passed out to them. However, he had to admit that it definitely needed some revising now that he was at home, away from all the classroom distractions.

While it was true that he enjoyed the background buzz, sometimes it got cartoonishly obnoxious. And… yes, his suspicious were confirmed after he took his paper out and reread what he had written.

"Love is unconditional support and care for someone or something. It's only as strong as the person's passion for their subject. It can be practiced, or kept subtle. Some people don't share it at all. In any case, it's apart of who we are, and is what keeps the world spinning."

He sighed, beginning to rewrite it. As he did, Odin chewed up his calculus textbooks in the back. He would have usually yelled at him for it, but somehow, this assignment was taking up a lot more attention than it should've.

"When you love something or someone, you make a promise to show unconditional support and care towards that subject. However, you are never obligated to honor this, because sometimes people fall out of love. With that being said though, I believe that we are all at least a little bit required to show the bare-minimum care towards everyone that meet. Whether we intensely love them or not, people deserve respect and kindness. 

In my opinion, that is what love is. It's an impulse, that may or may not be fully followed, but is still something that our heart chases after regardless. For example, even when people cut me in line, I still have enough love to not make a big deal out of it. I may pester them, but at the end of the day: my love far outweighs my hatred."

His hand was cramping by the time he finished.

xXxXx

JTS nearly lost his assignment, but he was thankfully able to recover it from the clutter beneath his bed.

He leaned up against his pillow as he pondered the question. It felt far more philosophical than a Health assignment normally should be, but his standards were probably not what everyone else followed. Culture shock, maybe? It tickled him a bit to think about it!

To think that he was so strong and independent, and yet fumbling his way through this little town. It was almost… comforting, to know that his journey was never done. Even through countless losses and wins, he was still able to find something new to reach.

"Let's see…"

He had been practicing his ambidextry lately, so he kept switching his writing hand every other sentence. It was good practice. Or at least, he liked to think so.

"Love is courage! It's when you're able to risk everything for the thing that you love. Whether it be your country, or a person…"

He flushed.

"You lay your life down for them. Or your axe, if they're a pacifist! Either way, it's sacrifice, and it's something that you don't even think twice about if it really is true love."

Chapter Text

PD would've completely forgotten about this assignment had Yuki not mentioned it in a text, but part of him was somewhat tempted to just forget about it again. It was never in his character to do things timely, always using some snarky one-liner like "fashionably late as always!" to justify his procrastinating behaviors.

However, he genuinely had nothing else to do, and found himself staring down the paper with his face screwing up.

...Uh, now that he thought about it, maybe it was good that he decided to do this ahead of him. A writing assignment, no matter how simple, always made him struggle. It was moreso with computer science and calculus was he able to do things right as they were due.

"Gord! I hate being proven wrooong!"

He whined to himself.

It took him about an hour to figure out what exactly to say, because in all honesty, he really had no clue what to say. Was love not self-explanatory enough already?

"It's when you like somebody a lot!"

He added heart stickers for further emphasis, because he was sure that everybody else in the class probably had a better answer than he did. And damn it, he would rather go out in style than to just be the plain worst.

xXxXx

Seb had forgotten to do his homework, and now he had about five minutes before the bell rang. He scratched his head, frowning. At least the assignment was simple enough.

"Love, huh? Everyone knows what that is…"

Quick to the pencil, Seb didn't even need to think twice about his response.

"It's in everyone. It's a beating heart. It's community. It's assurance."

xXxXx

When Chan got home from piano lessons, she was absolutely exhausted. With how small the town was, she had to drive completely far out just to find the nearest music studio. And, honestly, she wasn't too fond of her new instructor. He was a bit mean, and she was half-sure that he didn't even really know any kind of music theory. He was sketchy!

But that was for another day to figure out. Right now, she had more important things to attend to.

Like… homework…

Chan drew an annoyed breath as she took out her assignment. She clicked her sparkly purple pen repeatedly, trying to wrack a reasonable response out of her brain. On one hand, she didn't want to just do a one-word answer. That'd be cheap. However, once she got started going on one thought, she never hopped off that train. She needed an answer that wouldn't lead her down a rabbit-hole of rambling, because then her hand would start hurting, and…

Gah! Stay focused, Chan!

She limited herself to a two-sentence response:

"Love is the groundwork for society. Without empathy, we would have never gotten this far."

Her wrist was cramping, so she pried herself away from the desk to go get an ice-pack. The various bruises and scars around her body would also benefit from it, at least.

xXxXx

Yuro's tail flicked against the grass; warm light filtering through hanging leaves and making him sleepy.

He always liked to get away from that noisy town. It was filled with horrible people. Smelly, annoying, and incompetent people. Truly, the worst of the worst.

In another universe, maybe he could have lived somewhere nicer. Maybe Europe? He always thought that their accents were attractive, and he thought that the "aesthetic" nature of it would have suited him far better than this place.

Ah, but he was getting distracted… there was no point in wallowing over what-if's, even though that was something he did constantly. He berated himself at that.

"All I do is complain… but urgh, can you blame me..? It's not my fault I was dealt these cards! If my mom was rich, I'd be in a private school with smarter people, and uniforms that actually fit me..! And– I wouldn't have to be doing this stupid assignment!"

Right as he said that, he roughly clawed out a paper from his satchel-bag. He grimaced, feeling his disdain towards Mrs. Okami coming full-force. Her attitude was so artificial, and it made him sick to know that adults would just lie to them so blatantly. Was there no shame?

Still, he prided himself on good grades. Although, it was the only thing that he could be prided on. Everything else took too much effort.

With that cynical thought in mind, he got his assignment done fairly quickly. Even the most minimum amount of effort rewarded him greatly, because the grading curve in his classroom was outrageous.

"Love is something that we can all relate to. It's found in nearly everything that we consume; pop-culture, politics, communities, and our history all find common links through it. Without love, there is nothing for a society to be built on. Governments would cease to function without some level of empathy, and then it would snow-ball into our very own neighborhoods becoming similarly inhabitable. Love is what we need to live."

He snorted as he penned the period.

Okami would eat up anything wordy and faux-positive, so who was gonna tell her that he didn't even believe what he was writing?

xXxXx

Prime threw down his backpack as soon as he got home, because he had so many better things to do than homework.

Sure, he got pretty good grades, and he could probably do even better if he "locked in"-- but that took effort and motivation! And a cool guy like him was just too cool for that.

With a snicker, he booted up his Piranha-Station-4. After a few winning rounds of Cod-of-Duty, he could probably spare some time for his homework…

…

Three hours later, Prime found himself with sweaty palms and a forcibly-shut-down gaming-system. So what if he got a little mad on the mic? It wasn't his fault his teammates were absolute trash! Fuck that.

He shoved his controller into its slot on his shelf, and then pulled himself over to his backpack. He paused, staring down at his math homework, but tossed it to the side. Yeah, he'll start with the easy stuff first…

"Oh, come on, it's all crumpled up!"

Much to his displeasure, Prime finally found what he was looking for, but it was in a horrible state. A more rational thought told him that it was his fault, because he always insisted on never having proper folders, but the main voice in his head reminded Prime that things were never his fault.

He laid out the paper against a book– because he didn't have a desk, instead replacing the space and funds for one with his gaming console and computer– and got to writing.

"Love is when people get married and spend the rest of their lives together. It's when families live together and friends have each other's backs. Everyone has someone that they love."

Prime frankly felt a little embarassed, but no one needed to know that he'd ever write something so corny. They weren't going to… share this in class, right?

It was just for Okami's eyes..?

Prime scribbled out the rest of his response, now only leaving the first sentence.